Investigational drugs for treatment use: an avenue of hope for minority populations.

The Food and Drug Administration in its efforts to facilitate the drug approval process so that promising treatments may be offered to seriously ill or dying patients has established an innovative regulation, commonly known as the Treatment Investigational New Drugs (TIND). The benefits of this new policy should prove to be particularly appealing to black Americans. Traditionally blacks, due to numerous social, political, economic, and cultural factors, have had the poorest health status of any other population in the United States. The implementation of strategies to eradicate such factors will ultimately provide considerable improvement of the health status of blacks. Until then, the utilization of the TIND may prove to be one of the most significant influences in the advancement of our health care. Barriers to the use of the TIND regulation in the black community must be addressed as well.